(a) Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a static electricity prevention circuit and a display device including the same.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In general, a flat display device such as an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display has several advantages, as compared to a cathode ray tube display, such as a decrease in size, thickness, and power consumption, and is capable of realizing images of full-color and high resolution. These advantages have led to flat display devices being widely applied in various fields. Currently, the OLED display device has been used in computers, laptops, phones, TVs, audio/video devices, and the like.
Such an OLED display displays an image by controlling the amount of driving current transmitted to an organic light emitting element according to an image data signal applied to each of a plurality of pixels arranged in a matrix format.
Generally, a glass substrate is used as a substrate of the display device, but the glass substrate also acts as an insulator, so static electricity charges created during a panel manufacturing process collect on the glass substrate, thus causing foreign particles such as dusts to be easily attached to the glass substrate, thereby causing a process failure. Further, elements in the panel can be damaged due to the static electricity; therefore it is desirable for the collection of static electricity to be prevented in the flat display panel.
Conventionally, a wire or a resistor for shielding static electricity is inserted into an edge of the display panel. In addition, a static electricity prevention circuit using a diode is installed between a wire for supplying a power source voltage for driving the display panel and a wire for supplying a signal for a lighting test.
However, as the display size has increased, the occurrence of static charge has become more frequent during the manufacturing process and module assembling. Thus, the conventional art, such as the wire or the resistor for shielding static electricity, cannot effectively prevent static electricity from occurring in the large-sized display panel. In addition, when the static electricity prevention circuit is installed, damage caused by a short-circuit may frequently occur due to incidents such as a burst occurring in the static electricity prevention circuit as a result of high potential difference that is caused by the static electricity. Accordingly, driving of the display panel may fail.
Therefore, design of a display panel that is resistant to static electricity is used to prevent driving failure of the display panel, and to prevent damage to the display panel of the OLED display due to burst damage to the static electricity prevention circuit, and at the same time to effectively prevent occurrence of static electricity in the large-sized display panel.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention, and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.